


Lifeline

by Trobadora



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Episode: s03e13 Last of the Time Lords, M/M, Time Lord senses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-27
Updated: 2007-08-27
Packaged: 2017-10-06 19:43:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trobadora/pseuds/Trobadora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It's a thread, tying him to reality.</i> - Set after the main events of <i>Last of the Time Lords</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lifeline

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Winter Companions Ten/Jack Fest](http://community.livejournal.com/wintercompanion/997.html) \- the prompt was: "Confrontation after the Master is dead - how can the Doctor forgive a man who did such horrible things to Jack?"

He sits, numbly, clutching the Master's dead body to his chest.

Dead.

He can't believe it. Dead.

The emptiness, the silence in his head is deafening.

There is nothing else left. Only silence.

Except...

Except for the constant thrumming at the back of his mind, which is still there: He can feel _something_, here. _Jack_.

The constant awareness has been a reminder, a touchstone and a comfort, all through this last year: the awareness of a Fact that should not be, something immutable and timeless and utterly impossible, something that clenches his stomach and sets his teeth on edge - it's a comfort.

True, he barely noticed it, most of the time, the Master taking up all of his awareness. The whisper of the Master's presence in his mind - the sensation of another Time Lord, after so long, sending him through a rollercoaster of hope and despair every day. But the steady thrum of Jack's existence steadied him, gave him something to hold on to. Its very being was a comfort. Terrifying in its own right, but reliable and the one thing untouched by the Master - the one thing the Master could not touch. A constant. A Fact.

Now, though, the Master is gone.

What is still there - will always still be there, running through it all - is the thrum of Jack's existence. It's something to hold on to, when everything changes.

Slowly, he lets the Master's body slide from his grasp. He'll have to bury him properly.

Bury.

A terrible thought.

Something touches his shoulder. Jack.

Jack, who, he now realises, has shooed everyone else out of the room, but has kept him company himself.

Jack says nothing - knows better than to say anything, because what is there to say? But he slings an arm around the Doctor's shoulder, offering what comfort he can.

The Doctor almost wants to push him away. Almost.

But what else is there to hold on to, when his world has just collapsed? He's saved a world, but lost his own again. Was it worth it? He believed so, once - has to believe so, still. He has to.

So he turns to Jack and holds on to him, screaming his his frustration and rage and despair into the man's shoulder. Jack steadies him, his solid muscles under the Doctor's hands a comfort too.

Comfort. That was all it was supposed to be, he's sure, but - -

He never consciously makes the decision, but between one moment and the next, his lips are mashed against Jack's, and he's plundering his mouth - teeth and tongue and lips, roughly claiming, possessing - trying to crawl into the man's skin.

He's never kissed Jack before. _Why_ has he never kissed him before?

When they come apart, they're both panting harshly, but not letting go. Not letting go.

Neither of them says anything - there is nothing left to say, not now. He pushes Jack back onto the floor, fumbling with his shirt for a moment before giving up, pressing closer, closer - - holding him down, pushing down onto him.

Jack's grip on his shoulders is hard, pulling him down. Asking no questions.

Jack's body, his personality, his impossible existence - solid, dependable, _there_.

There for him, his for the taking.

He grinds his hips down, and they both groan. Jack's hands slide down his back, cup his arse, squeeze - -

\- - and he's out of control, grinding, thrusting, making noises no alphabet could transcribe - finally, finally - oh, this is so good. Frantic, wild, and he can _feel_ Jack – body, mind, his very being - -

And he comes, with one last desperate noise he comes, collapsing like a puppet whose strings have been cut, faintly registering Jack's answering reaction.

They get up in silence, tidy themselves in silence.

**

Martha's family is being taken back down to Earth by UNIT, and she is going with them, taking care of them. He tells her he'll meet up with her in a few days. She nods, offers condolences she doesn't - can't possibly - sincerely mean, and gives Jack a glance the Doctor can't properly decipher right now before she turns away.

He burns the Master's body. What else can he do? It's not like anything that matters is left now, in this corpse. Just a dead body.

He stares blindly into the flames for a long time.

Ashes, all that is left.

When he returns - why does he even return to the _Valiant_? He's not sure why, but he does. Like something is calling him, reeling him in. When he returns, Jack is on the phone with Torchwood.

He really should go and pick up Martha. They should be on their way. Back to normal, right? It's what you do, when you've saved the day.

It's what you do, even if your world has fallen apart.

But instead, he finds himself lurking on the fringes of Jack's dealings with UNIT, listening in on his phone calls, watching him deal with the aftermath of a world saved. He tells himself it's morbid fascination.

He needs to get a grip, or he'll still be stalking the man in a week. He really, really needs to get this under control.

But Jack's presence is the only thing he can really feel, right now. It's all that's left.

It's a thread, tying him to reality.

Across the room, Jack turns – their eyes meet. Jack has been aware of his presence since the moment he entered the room. Of course.

Jack nods at him, closes his phone and makes his way across the room. Like a vulture circling in on him.

Like reality bearing down on him.

Life, continuing.

"Doctor."

He tries for a smile. "Jack."

He notes, dispassionately, that despite their earlier tussle, Jack makes no attempt to touch him now.

Of course he doesn't; he knows better than that.

The Doctor almost wishes he would.

"You need to rest," Jack finally says. "We all do."

He nods. And brings himself to ask: "Come with me?"

"I need to be back here in the morning. There's still things to take care of."

"For tonight, then."

Jack nods, and they walk, side by side, to the TARDIS. They walk in silence, silently through the control room, silently down her corridors. She still feels subtly wrong – she exists out of time, after all, and what never happened nevertheless echoes through her conduits, resonates in her very fabric like phantom pain.

He cannot soothe it.

The telepathic connection, the bond that balances him under normal circumstances, only unsettles him further now. His grief, her pain – they seem to amplify each other. But he knows the balance will return, that it will be longer if he stays away, so he doesn't. She needs time to heal. He is here, that is all he can do for her, all she can do for him.

Jack is another matter entirely.

He's still not sure what made him ask the man to stay, to come with him, to keep him company in his grief that must be beyond Jack's understanding. Terrible, guilty grief for the last of the Time Lords other than himself. Jack's presence, unlike the TARDIS's, steadies him now: a constant, when everything is spinning around him. When they they reach the door where they've always parted before, it's easy to ask: "Come inside?"

With a nod, Jack does.

**

He pours them both a drink, offers a glass to Jack in silence. It's the most he has to offer, right now.

What use is he?

Even when he saves the day, there is destruction and pain in his wake. What use was he ever?

Jack accepts the glass, and they sit together in silence.

Once upon a time, Jack would have filled the silence with words; now he is quiet. The Doctor is unsure if it's because of him, or because of –

Because of the Master. Because of what his old friend, his old enemy did to his human friend. He'd chosen sides, without even questioning – chosen the Master over anything else. He still would. Would do anything to get him back, not to be alone.

He gives Jack a guilty glance. How can the man even bear his presence? It's all his fault, this last year – all his, because he had to try and save what couldn't be saved. But he doesn't regret it: doesn't regret the pain and destruction that was undone, or the one that wasn't, the one that lingers. Victims, so many – but they weren't Time Lords. How could they compare?

It's not that he isn't aware how cruel that is. How arrogant. His own hubris, the hubris of the Time Lords – his birthright. He cannot regret it.

Jack is still silent, a steady presence at his side, and suddenly it's too much. How can Jack even stand him?

No, he doesn't regret anything, but he wants the consequences: he wants the resentment, the rejection, he wants the loss. He wants to pay the price for what he tried. He wants the punishment.

How else can he live with his own choices?

But Jack, stubborn human that he is, refuses to accuse.

He'll have to do something about that.

Soon.

Just as soon as he can bring himself to break the silence.

**

They're not sleeping. Of course not. Too much has happened in one day, and after all, neither of them really _need_ sleep. They sit in silence, each lost in his own thoughts.

He almost doesn't notice, but it's an absence that itches - something subtly changed, and then it finally registers.

Jack's eyes.

Jack's eyes are no longer on him.

They had been on him, all the time, from the moment they were brought together again - not a moment he'd looked away. Not when the Doctor had tried to save the Master, not when he'd failed. Not when he'd grieved. Not when they walked, silently, to the TARDIS. Not when they sat together in silence.

Now they are blank, vacant, staring into nothing.

"Jack?"

No reaction.

He hesitates. It'd be easier like this - Jack's presence, his being, the lifeline he craved, without having to deal with the man himself.

He pulls himself together. Reaches out, grasps Jack's shoulder. "Jack." Insistently, he calls.

Jack doesn't even seem to register the the touch.

No, it's not just his being: his personality, his character, just as much - the steady presence is more than a vacant, immortal body, it's a friend by his side who won't abandon him even through the Doctor's unforgivable hubris.

He knows it's unforgivable, knows it's hubris - he needs the guilt. Has always needed it, though not to this degree: after all, now there is nothing else keeping him in check. The lonely god: he knows, has always known he'd make a lousy god. It doesn't stop him from acting as one.

He wants Jack's accusations, the choice words he's sure the human will have for him.

He needs them.

He shakes the man. "_Jack._ Look at me!"

Jack flinches violently, then visibly reigns himself in. "Uh, sorry there, Doc. Didn't notice you there." And just like this, the silence is broken.

"That much was obvious," the Doctor comments, though it doesn't come out as sardonically as he'd have liked. "You were completely gone. Let me guess – Time Agent training?" Because that kind of meditation doesn't seem like something Jack would be interested in on his own. Nothing that requires holding still for any amount of time seems very much like Jack, after all.

"Yeah. Sorry, bad habit."

And with that, it suddenly becomes clear: this is what Jack did, to survive the last year. To keep himself sane, he retreated into this space when he needed it. The Doctor swallows.

"I'm sorry," he says. He realises the futility of the phrase. He's said it too often; and it's not like it means anything, makes anything better.

Jack smiles at him, however, as if it did. "Not your fault. It's over now."

Smiles. He's completely here now - sharp and clear and alive. Hard to believe this was the same man who'd been so deep in a trance a moment ago that he'd noticed none of his surroundings. So deep back in the horrors of last year. He can't let that happen again. Whatever else may or may not be between them, he's never wished Jack any pain. He wouldn't have wished last year on his worst enemy.

So he resolves to keep him anchored in the present. Jack is doing the same for him just by existing, after all – not only because of what he is, but because he's _Jack_, and he's come through this remarkably unharmed, and he's always known how to take the Doctor's moods in stride, breaking the worst of them with a grin, or bearing the onslaught of some Time Lord emotion he couldn't fully understand with patience and good nature rivalled by none.

They sit in silence, companionably. Not in complete silence, however - a word, a remark every now and then keeps them both anchored. Keeps them here and now, keeps them sane.

A night, a day, another night: this is what they have. This is what Jack has to hold on to, to recover, to get his mask in place again. This is what the Doctor clings to. It's not much, but it's something to hold on to.

It's not much, but it's all they have.

With each other, they almost feel alive.

Almost.

**

Humans say time heals everything. The Time Lord knows better. But time does soothe, even for him - time, the steady motion, the permanent change. "This too will pass." The wisest thing, perhaps, a human has ever said. Sitting here, in not-quite-silence, with Jack by his side, he thinks maybe he can bear it. Maybe he can wait until it changes. Maybe he can move on.

They talk through the night – inconsequentials, chit-chat, small talk, with long breaks of silence in between. But they're here, they're _now_. Not in that year of hell.

As the night morphs into day, day into night, with brief interruptions for Jack's businesss with UNIT, their silence changes. Their words change. Banter returns, slowly, movement returns. They stop avoiding touch, they stop retreating inward.

With a casual touch of the shoulder, meaningless small-talk and an understanding that shouldn't be possible between two beings so fundamentally different, eternal in different and incompatible ways, they guide each other back to life.

**

On the morning of the second night, he finally asks: "How can you stand me?"

Jack rolls his eyes. "Stop it with the martyr complex. It's getting old."

He swallows. "Jack. After what my arrogance cost you. Why do you forgive me?"

Because even though the words haven't been said, it's clear. It never needed words - Jack's forgiveness is palpable between them. He doesn't deserve it. He doesn't want it. But it won't be denied.

All he has left is to ask why.

"I'd make a lousy god," he says, knowing Jack will understand the seeming non-sequitur.

Jack snorts. "You _are_ a lousy god."

The Doctor flinches as if Jack had struck him. Maybe he has.

What is he? The birthright of a Time Lord - what does it mean? How can any of the lesser beings ever understand? How can they accept?

He swallows. "Even if I am, how can you accept it? Not just because of everything it cost you. You never saw me as a higher being. You never treated me like that." Of course, none of them ever do - but that's a lack of understanding, nothing more. "Why?" Plaintive, almost.

There is a pause. Jack's eyes are heavy on him, weighing, deliberating.

It takes too long.

"So I'm a god," the Doctor says, bitterly. As if he hasn't been called that before. As if he hasn't thought it himself. It's different, from Jack's mouth.

Jack rolls his eyes.

"Don't worry, I'm not about to start building temples in your honour. Though if you wanted me on my knees, I'm sure we could…"

"_Jack._"

Another long, shuttered, indecipherable look.

"I'm not blind," Jack says, finally. "Did you think I'd learn nothing from the Master?"

The Doctor blinks. What does that even mean?

"Look, I've known for a long time that you're a Time Lord. I've even known some of what that means, in the abstract. But until this last year, I don't think I really understood."

"What? What do you think you understand?" His voice is harsh, the words rough in his throat.

"That no matter how hard you run, you can't run away from what you are," Jack says, almost gently. "You have that power, whether you like it or not. You do your best not to use it - sometimes you try too hard not to use it, sometimes you let yourself forget a little. But you didn't forget, with the Master. You just didn't run."

The Doctor stares.

"It was good to see," Jack adds.

The Doctor keeps staring, unable to wrap his considerable mind around this. Jack sounds… almost _proud_. As if he's seen the Doctor achieve something amazing, as opposed to the almost unforgivable act of presumption it was.

Incongruously, Jack grins at him. "We make quite a pair, don't we?"

**

They'll go and meet up with Martha in a few hours.

He knows Jack will leave. But he knows he himself will return: The thread that binds them is growing stronger with every day. It will reel him in again.


End file.
